Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content, such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, or the like. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
By way of example, a wireless multiple-access communication system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, otherwise known as user equipment (UEs). A base station may communicate with UEs on downlink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a base station to a UE) and uplink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a UE to a base station).
The wireless communications with a UE or a network device (e.g., base station, eNodeB) may take place over two separate radio access technologies (RATs), where the first RAT may correspond to a WWAN RAT (e.g., Long Term Evolution (LTE)) and the second RAT may correspond to a wireless local area network (WLAN) RAT (e.g., Wi-Fi). The connections to the RATs (e.g., links) are likely to have different properties in terms of supporting coverage areas or other properties. In such a scenario, a UE may leave a coverage area of a device, such as an access point, that communicates via the second RAT while remaining in a coverage area of another device, such as a base station, that communicates via the first RAT. In this case, packets may be dropped by the access point without being communicated to the UE. Furthermore, the UE may consume battery power by periodically transmitting a measurement report to the base station in order to maintain connectivity via the second RAT.
For example, in LTE-WLAN aggregation, cellular LTE coverage may be different from WLAN access point (AP) coverage. In this case, it may be difficult to reduce or eliminate packet loss while reducing power consumption during switching from one WLAN AP to another WLAN AP, or when switching from a WLAN to a WWAN, such as an LTE network. These issues may be partially addressed by using a network-directed approach to LTE-WLAN aggregation. However, such an approach may cause packet loss and excess UE power consumption. Techniques described herein overcome these and other shortcomings by improving the management of LTE-WLAN (or WWAN-WLAN) aggregation.